Eggnog

We had a delicious homemade eggnog over the holidays using the recipe for making it in quantity in Joy of Cooking. I've used this before but it was particularly successful this time for reasons that escape me.

I halved the full recipe, which calls for 12 egg yolks beaten until light in color, then beat in gradually 1 lb. confectioners' sugar and 2 c. of liquor (dark rum, brandy, bourbon, rye or a mixture of these -- I used bourbon). Let this mixture stand, covered, for 1 hour "to dispel the 'eggy' taste." Then beat in 2 to 4 c. more of liquor, 2 quarts heavy cream and an optional 1 c. peach brandy. I had some old peach brandy in the cabinet but it tasted musty and got thrown out so I did without. Cover and refrigerate this mixture for 3 hours. The final step is to beat 8 to 12 egg whites "until stiff but not dry" and fold this into the egg mixture. I grated fresh nutmeg over the individual servings.

This was of course very rich and creamy. Everyone who visited and tried it loved it. The liquor component might be too strong for some people even using the lower range specified. I beat everything, including the egg whites, by hand and that certainly worked well. What was nice this time was that it remained creamy and frothy over 3 days (even a half portion was a lot to drink). Other times I've tried this it separates out a bit into a frothy top and a more fluid eggnog.

Hemingway 51: Green Isaac's Special

I was surprised at Philip Greene's presentation last month when he said Hemingway was way ahead of the trend for coconut water, because I had never heard of it. But sure enough, it is now a very trendy drink and Whole Foods has a whole shelf full of coconut water, so I tried out this cocktail from Islands in the Stream.

It starts with 2 oz. of gin, mixed with 4 oz. of coconut water and 1 oz. of lime juice, along with 2 to 4 dashes of Angostura bitters, shaken and poured with ice into Collins glass, and garnished with a lime wedge. It was eminently drinkable, though something of an acquired taste that is probably acquired much more easily on a hot day in the Caribbean than in a Washington winter. It is refreshing (coconut water is supposed to restore those elusive electrolytes), though not immediately competition for a gin and tonic. I'll try it again in the summer.

Greene notes the drink is also called a "Tomini" and in another place a "Tom Collins" with the ingredients specified.

Al Dente

Zagat sent out a helpful post this week about a dozen new popular restaurants and this casual dining place by chef Roberto Donna was one of them. It's located in the old Sutton Place Gourmet on New Mexico Avenue in the same complex as Chef Geoff's and we were able to get a reservation for a bar seat.

The food was quite good. My roast veal with porcini sauce and potato tart was tasty and a nice dish for the price ($19). Andrea's "Del Plin" pasta -- a fresh, short pasta -- stuffed with potato and leeks and topped with a crumbled sausage called cotechino (and butter and parmesan) was outstanding. The pasta was warm and yummy and the sausage very flavorful; it was served in a broth that combined all the flavors. The Caesar salad we split as a starter was plentiful and fresh. Bread was a nice hard crust and the wines -- a Soave and a Barbera -- quite smooth and moderately priced.

The ambiance, however, is not great. The decor is what I would call early Euro trash, made more garish by the bright neon lighting. It looked more like a truck stop in Belgium, or Italy, than a warm and cozy restaurant. A former gourmet foodshop with big plate-glass windows may not be an ideal location for a restaurant. The music when we arrived, somewhat on the early side, could only be described as horrid, a loud rap that might have appealed to the bar crowd over at Chef Geoff's but hardly to the clientele of families and middle-aged couples we saw here. They transitioned later to Christmas crap as the restaurant filled up. A final, niggling complaint -- the parking attendant neglected to observe the validation and failed, as we only realized later, to give us the proper discount on parking.

All that said, the food will certainly bring us back. Prices are on a par with Arucola and the quality is a step or two up.

Braised 'fresh bacon'

Tom Colicchio couldn't  help bragging that GQ voted this recipe their favorite meat dish of the year, but only after debating whether to call it "fresh bacon" or "pork belly." I prefer the traditional name. Fresh bacon is a bit pretentious, though it does establish the link between this fatty cut of pork and the streaked bacon you buy.

This is one of the recipes he uses to demonstrate braising and it is excellent. It takes a long time, but is very easy. Put the 2 lbs of pork belly in a skillet with 1 Tbl of peanut oil, fat side down, and cook for 15 min over medium heat. Remove pork and drain off all but 2 Tbl of fat. Add 1 chopped onion, 2 chopped carrots, 2 chopped celery stalks, 2 peeled garlic cloves and sautee for 20 min, until vegetables start to turn brown. Put pork back in, fat side up, with 2 c. chicken stock (he calls for his brown chicken stock where he cooks a chicken stock a second time with brown chicken pieces but I just used store-bought). Bring to a simmer and put in 350-degree oven. After 1 hour, add another cup of stock and cook for another hour. Let it cool in braising liquid. Remove pork (take off skin if you were lucky enough to find pork belly with skin on), cut into 4 serving pieces and make cross-hatch pattern in the fat. Strain braising liquids, discard solids. Bring liquid to simmer and skim off fat. Return pork to pan and put it in 400-degree oven for 20 min. Serve in shallow bowl with some braising liquid. I served tiny boiled purple potatoes with it which you could mash in the bowl and soak up the liquid.

The meat has an intense pork-y flavor not at all like bacon but more like a juicy bit of braised shoulder. It is of course super-tender after all this cooking and the braising liquid is flavorful and surprisingly light.

Roast chicken

I'm delving into Tom Colicchio's Think Like a Chef with his simple technique demonstrations. I usually find chef cookbooks too complicated and precious for home cooking, but this stuff seems harmless enough.

His technique for roasting a chicken has two unusual twists. The first is to brown the chicken in the skillet on top of the stove. You put the chicken "on its side" and brown for 7 min. then turn it over to the other side for 7 min. Then set it breast side up and put the skillet in a 375-degree oven. The chicken was washed, patted dry, salted and peppered, 2 sprigs each of rosemary and thyme in the cavity and trussed before being browned in 1 Tbl of peanut oil.

The second twist is to add 2 Tbl butter to the skillet after the first 20 min of roasting, then roasting another 30 min., basting every so often. When done, let the chicken rest for 15 min., carve and sprinkle coarse sea salt over the pieces. The chicken was very flavorful, and the browning and butter gave the skin a nice taste, while the basting kept the breasts moist. The thighs had a bit of that burnt grease flavor that using a roaster grid is designed to avoid, but I don't mind that.

'Ask your butcher'

One of my pet peeves about cookbook authors is their pretense that we all live in a world with a friendly neighborhood butcher who is waiting behind the counter with every conceivable meat product ready to carve and cut it to my exact specifications.

What world are they living in? I don't think even most residents of New York or San Francisco have a butcher like that, let alone the rest of us in industrial foodland USA.

Tom Colicchio -- who is not necessarily the worst offender, only the most recent -- says in a recipe for pork belly "to be sure to have your butcher leave on the skin."

Me, I'm just happy that Whole Foods has started carrying pork belly regularly so that I don't have to chase around to a Korean supermarket to find it. Here's how the dialogue goes with the person who happened to be behind the WF meat counter yesterday as he put two slabs of pork belly with no skin onto the scale for me:

Me: "I don't supposed you have any pork belly with the skin on."
Him: "Naw, we don't sell it that way. Anything else, today?"

End of conversation. What next, Tom? Whole Foods is one of two places where I can conveniently shop for high-quality meat. A computer decides what cuts they are going to offer based on which product moves the most through the store. Truth be told, there was one meat-cutter at WF who I could talk to about things like my pork rib roast "honor guard" last year, but I haven't seen him for months and there is no discernible continuity in the people behind the meat counter. Only the expensive cuts are displayed in the case and everything else is packaged in cellophane in another meat case. What you see is what you get and I've not found them in general to be responsive to requests.

The other place where I regularly buy meat is Broad Branch Market, which obviously has a very limited selection of just certain cuts, and the kids behind the counter serving you don't know the difference between a strip and a ribeye. Lots of people like Chevy Chase supermarket, but everything there is pre-cut and wrapped in cellophane, which of course is the way most supermarkets these days handle meat.

More specialized butchers are few and far between. Wagshal's is too far and more often than not service there has been surly when I do venture to make the trip. Some the new boutique butchers springing up in Alexandria and other snob locales basically seem to be adjuncts to restaurants, to off-load what chef doesn't sell, so you can get what they have or of course special order it a week in advance.

Which is the way it is, but it would be nice if cookbook writers could abandon their fictional bubble and talk to people who live in the real world. For instance, Colicchio could have said: "In this recipe, leaving the skin on enhances the flavor if you can find pork belly like that, but otherwise it tastes fine with the skin removed."

Hemingway 52: Cognac and Benedictine

This was actually the second drink we had at the Last Exit when author Philip Greene was guest-bartending. He found this straightforward combination, served in an Old Fashioned glass with ice and a lemon peel, in an unpublished short story of Hemingway's, "The Mercenaries: A Story." Hemingway had just returned from ambulance service in World War I and his narrator meets some professional soldiers in a dive in Chicago. They introduce him to this drink, which they first tasted in Sicily, even though it combines two French cordials.

Greene says Martell's is the cognac called for and it's clear you don't want a really good one to mix in a drink. It tastes a bit like a stinger -- brandy and white creme de menthe, also served over ice -- without the cloying sweetness of the creme de menthe. Instead, there is the herbal smokiness of the Benedictine, redolent of monastic incense. As Greene notes, you can now buy B&B in a bottle all its own.

I have a fondness for these herbal liqueurs, Chartreuse being the most representative. Perhaps it is an acquired taste, because I know many people are repelled by them. I had ordered this drink for Andrea, thinking she wouldn't like the Jack Rose, but it turned out she preferred it to this one, so I finished it.

I don't regularly keep any of these liqueurs and haven't had one since the last bottle of Chartreuse ran out. But I may get some Benedictine as the next herbal cordial to have on hand.

The vintner's wife's pork chops

I'm grateful that many cookbook authors don't hesitate to include even very simple recipes because it helps turn a quick weekday meal into something tasty and different. This recipe from Susan Herrmann Loomis's Cooking at Home on Rue Tatin is basically just a fried pork chop, sauteed 3 to 4 min on each side and then cooked with the skillet covered for another 7 min. Remove the chops and cover with foil to keep warm. Add 1/2 c. water to the skillet and a finely chopped shallot and garlic clove. Stir to deglaze the pan and reduce the sauce. Add 4 chopped cornichons and then 1 Tbl Dijon mustard, stir to combine and pour sauce over chops. Sprinkle minced parsley over them.

Though attributed to a vintner's wife, there is no wine in this recipe, but the combination of mustard and shallots makes a hearty red wine appealing and I had a southern Cote du Rhone.

Among the minor marvels at Broad Branch Market is their tub of cornichons for 4.99 a pound -- which gives you a nice pint for less than 3. They are real French-style cornichons and I usually have a tub in the fridge.

Salmon fillet poached in olive oil

We liked Paula Wolfert's Pork coddled in olive oil so this seemed like a good simple recipe to try for a weekday meal. Sprinkle a 1-lb center cut salmon fillet (skin removed) with salt an hour before cooking and put back in fridge. Meanwhile, heat 2-1/2 c. (!) olive oil in a skillet just big enough to hold the fillet to simmering point with 3 sliced garlic cloves and a sprig of thyme and cook until garlic turns golden brown. Turn off heat and let stand until ready to cook the salmon. After an hour, rinse the salmon and pat it dry. Remove the garlic and thyme and heat the oil back to 155 degrees (using a candy thermometer to measure), put in the salmon, adding more oil to cover if necessary, and poach for 12 min. at 145 degrees. Turn off heat and let it cook further in the oil until it is opaque and flaky.

The fish came out silky and tender -- not at all oily! -- gently infused with the thyme and garlic flavor. It was heavenly. Yes it's a lot of olive oil and a bit of an extravagance since we are not likely to be able to re-use the oil, but it's a very nice way to cook salmon for a change of pace.

Wolfert suggests a salad of arugula with shaved rhubarb and cucumber to accompany. Obviously there's no rhubarb available this time of year, so I just left it out. The peeled cucumber gets sliced on a mandolin, then tossed in salt and left for 10 min. Rinse and drain the cucumbers, add to a couple handfuls of arugula, toss with lemon juice and sprinkle shredded mint leaves over the top. The wonderful tangy taste of the arugula comes through unadorned and sets off the salmon very nicely.

Hemingway 53: Jack Rose

As part of his unceasing efforts to promote his book on Hemingway's cocktails, Philip Greene worked as guest bartender at the Last Exit in Mount Pleasant one night this week offering various versions of the Jack Rose cocktail. There is the bar's version, made with Calvados; the classic version with just Laird's applejack, lemon juice and grenadine; and the more elaborate version he attributes to Harry MacElhone of Harry's New York Bar in Paris and which he thinks is the one Hemingway meant when he referred to the drink in The Sun Also Rises.

I went straight for this version, which adds gin, red and white vermouth and orange juice to the original ingredients. It was very good -- refreshing with a good kick to it.

I was curious about the drink since the Jack Rose bar in D.C. is one of my new favorite places. Oddly, there is no whiskey in the cocktail that lent its name to this fabulous whiskey emporium but it's a catchy name in any case.

Harry's Bar was a favorite of mine in Paris. One of its claims to fame is that the Bloody Mary was invented there (there are other claimants as well). One day I was there and Harry's son, Andy MacElhone, was explaining to a TV crew that the original Bloody Mary never had celery in it as they filmed one of the crack bartenders mixing up a sample.

The bartender put the finished drink on the bar with a flourish, MacElhone finished his explanation, the TV crew turned off their spotlights and began packing up to leave. So I said, "What's going to happen to this drink?" MacElhone laughed and said, "Give it to him, he thought of it first."

Palena Cafe

When some friends suggested going to a wine-tasting at Weygandt's with Eric Asimov I took advantage of the expanded Cafe Palena's ability to take reservations and booked us a table there afterwards. I was keen to finally try Frank Ruta's signature roast chicken and it lived up to all my expectations and more.

As one of our friends said, "This may be the best roast chicken I've ever had." Crispy, browned skin, moist interior just cooked through, piping hot from the oven, with just a garnish of braised greens, it was simply delicious. There's a lot of speculation online just how he does it. There seems to be more flavor than just the lemon and lemon zest Ruta gives in a roast chicken recipe in Food and Wine, but maybe something short of a marinade. The chicken is undoubtedly organic and spends time in the fridge to dry out the skin so that it roasts crispy. It is prepared completely on order and takes a good 30 to 45 minutes (though waiting with a perfect Sazerac, Palena's delicious selection of bread and good company is no hardship).

My already favorable impression of the Cafe soared. Everything was just right -- the service was impeccable and friendly, the bread was oven warm and tasty (the bread sticks were fabulous), the butter was soft, the Sazerac -- did I mention? -- was perfect, the Caesar salad Andrea and I split was like a Romaine wedge with parmesan, the glass of Cote du Rhone was smooth, the coffee was fresh and robust.

It's not particularly cheap -- $21 may strike some as high for chicken, but it's a full half and a bargain at this price; there is a token extra charge for the bread and there was even a charge for splitting the salad. But, hey, you're getting the full quality of the prix fixe restaurant for a fraction of the price.

Birch & Barley

This restaurant at Logan Circle has an upstairs bar, the Churchkey, featuring 50 craft beers on tap and another 500 in bottles, so I've been meaning to try it out and finally did this week. I hit a day when they were having a special event celebrating 21 years of the Schlafly brewery, a craft brewery in St. Louis, with 21 of their beers. This was fine with me, since I grew up in St. Louis and I'm glad that the city of Anheuser-Busch and Falstaff is also a leader in the craft revolution.

I started with the 2 oz. samples and liked that so much I stayed with it instead of picking a beer to have a full glass of. Keep this in mind as I rattle off the beers I tried, all 8 of them, because it is only 16 oz. of beer, or the same as one normal pint. The bartender recommended going just two at a time to keep them straight, so I started in the "crisp" category with Schlafly Pilsner and Oktoberfest. Both good, with the Oktoberfest a little spicier. Then two pale ales from Schlafly: the dry-hopped American pale ale and the Tanzanian IPA. Both good as pale ales but I like pilsners better. I took a break from Schlafly to try two cask ales: Oxbow and Winter Storm. Oxbow had a murky, new beer look and I didn't much care for it; Winter Storm was very spicy in a pleasant sort of way. I finished with two dark beers from Schlafly: the Porter and the Reserve Stout. I find most of these dark beers too raw -- can anyone really beat Guinness? -- so the smoother Porter was my preference here.

I'll suspend judgment on the food -- the bar has its own menu of bar-type food while the downstairs restaurant has a more ambitious menu. I tried the signature "brat burger" -- which adds some pork and sausage spices to a hamburger -- and was not impressed. It was supposed to have sauerkraut on it but the amount was small you could hardly taste it. Why get fancy? Serve brats, for god's sake. Also the ubiquitous and detestable coated fries accompanied it. They get good marks for grilled cheese and other simple fare, so will try that next time.

The beer is great, super-fresh, with a lot of attention paid to temperature and a studied array of glasses to serve the various types in. Arriving at 5:30, I got a bar stool, but when I left an hour later it was three deep at the bar.

Small plates

Various dishes for lunch and dinner that have been successful:

Eggplant parmesan: This Marcella Hazan recipe is an old favorite of mine that I hadn't tried in a long time. It's very simple and sinfully delicious. So even though it's hardly eggplant season, I cooked it over the weekend to accompany some lamb chops from Blue Rooster Farm.

Peel and slice the eggplants vertically into 3/8-in. slices, salt in colander and let stand for at least 30 min., pat dry. Fill skillet to 1 in. with vegetable oil and fry slices in repeated single layers until they are golden brown, drain. I have to say, whether it's because I used a cast iron skillet or that I finally did pour in oil up to 1 in., this was the best success I ever had with this step. The eggplant slices absorbed very little oil and came out light and fluffy. Layer the slices into a greased baking pan alternating with a layer of coarsely grated mozzarella and chopped can tomato with a Tbl of parmesan and a pinch of oregano and salt. End with a layer of eggplant, sprinkle with parmesan and dot with butter. Put into a 400-degree oven for 20 min., check for excess liquid and bake another 15 min. Let cool a bit before serving. I only used 1-1/2 lbs eggplant instead of the 3 in the recipe (which somehow she gets from 2 medium eggplants), so I only had 2 layers of eggplant with one layer of cheese and tomato in between. Scrumptious.

Pan-roasted red snapper with Old Bay: I adapted this from Steve Sando's bean book to go along with a batch of his flageolet beans. I got a nice small filet from A&H, and coated it in a mix of flour and Old Bay (a new tin as part of my effort to use fresher spices), then fried on top of stove before putting briefly in 400-degree oven to cook through. It was delicious with the beans.

Bean and tuna salad: Another adaptation from Sando, using some of the flageolet beans again. I got some expensive Spanish canned tuna from A&H -- it really does taste a whole lot better than the Whole Foods brands -- mashed it in a salad bowl, then added sliced onion and chopped parsley (didn't have the celery that Sando adds), the beans (slightly warmed), oil and vinegar and salt and pepper. Toss. Great lunch!

Hemingway 54: Whiskey and soda

Continuing the countdown of Hemingway cocktails in Philip Greene's To Have and Have Another, this week's featured drink is whiskey and soda, which may not seem too exciting but was a staple for the writer and a good everyday drink for yours truly.

As whiskey aficionados seek to outdo each other in finding obscure single malts and Johnny Walker continues to add new colored labels, workaday blended Scotches appear old-fashioned, especially mixed with ice and soda. But it still works and for this countdown I retrieved the bottle of Dewar's White Label, mentioned by Greene as one of Hemingway's favorites, from the back of my cupboard and had one, then another.

When I first turned of drinking age (a youthful 18 in those days), I was told that if you drink Scotch, you should drink a good one, and if you drink a good Scotch, you shouldn't sully it with anything other than a splash of water. So I was surprised sitting on one of my early transatlantic flights when a young Scot sitting next me ordered some ginger ale with his Scotch. "Surprised?" he said, shaking his head. "Americans think you should never mix anything with Scotch but we think it tastes good with ginger ale." I tried it, and it did taste good, but I can't say it changed my thinking or my drinking habits (in fact I rarely drink ginger ale at all).

The short story mentioned in this chapter is "Night Before Battle," set again in Chicote's bar in Madrid during the Spanish Civil War, when the narrator meets a tank commander who's convinced he will die in the next day's battle. It's an interesting story, and has this great line about drinking (NOT quoted by Greene), as the narrator mulls over his day's effort to film a battle: "When things are all right and it is you that is feeling low a drink can make you feel better. But when things are really bad and you are all right, a drink just makes it clearer." Needless to say, he concluded that the latter applied to this particular day.

Ripple

Of course the big joke about the name of this restaurant for people my age is that before the wine revolution in this country, Ripple, a rotgut sold in plastic bottles, was probably the best-known wine in the country.

The wine here is certainly not rotgut, though the offerings by the glass are extraordinarily expensive, in the 12-15 range. Maybe that's what the Cleveland Park after-work market will bear. It is a bright and warm restaurant with a long, inviting bar made of colorful segments of polished tile. We came early, sat at a bar table and watched the place fill up.

We split a cheese plate for starters. Like cheese plates everywhere, the portions were very skimpy but the cheeses were good. I had the venison, which came with things like apple tahini and salted beef stems. It was tender and tasty, cooked to a nice medium rare with the emphasis on rare. Andrea had the stuffed lamb shoulder, which was also good though a little mushy for my taste. The entrees without extra sides make for a meager meal, but we like to pretend we're on a diet so that was OK.

An overall positive experience but probably overpriced for what you get. I'll go again, but won't rush back.